My friend and amazing pianist, Steven C Anderson, just released an originally composed and divinely channeled CD all about Spirit! The track titles and inspirational messages they convey are just as beautiful as the music itself. Some of the titles are “Knowing”, “Be Here Now”, “Letting Go”, and “Interconnected.”

Here’s what Steven C has to say:

“I went deep -  read a lot of books, reflected on life A-Z  and found new inspiration from simple everyday life!  The result…  Spiritual Piano was recorded live with a small “intenders” group.  I explained the inspiration and message of each song prior to recording. Click here to read what inspired each song. The “intenders” would concentrate on the theme and give it energy, intention and extra emotion. During the process of creating this CD, I have created a new term for my music. “Message Music”  is my center.  My music has a greater agenda beyond sounding nice, great melodies, etc.  “Message Music” is music with a purpose for higher good.  Music that seeks to inspire, heal, relax, motivate and finally to inspire insightful conversations about life and spirituality.”

Go here to enjoy your own copy, connect more deeply with Spirit, or to hear live concerts. Enjoy!

Intuition – we’ve heard the word, and know that it something that is a part of us. Most of us have had the experience of ‘knowing’ something was about to happen, or that something, someone, or some situation didn’t feel right or felt good. But, how do we listen to it? What exactly is it?

Intuition is our sixth sense that may be sensed through all of our other five senses. It is our Heart, our Soul, or our Spiritual Connection directly speaking to us. It is there to protect us from harm and connect us with joy. It is beyond our rational, linear, judging mind. It can come to us strongly as an undeniable voice, vision, or feeling. It may come to us as messages that attempt to speak to us in dreams, through interactions with perfect strangers, through songs on the radio, or things we read. It may come to us in more subtle ways that may pass us by. Sometimes we miss it completely. And that’s why we want to know how to listen to it.

We each have our own unique way of ‘hearing’ these potent messages. Here are a few steps you can take to understand how you Intuit and to begin listening to it and trusting it:

1. Meditate – There are many ways to meditate. Choose a meditation that speaks to you, one you enjoy practicing, and quiets your mind. A simple practice is to become aware of your breath coming in and out of your body. Let your body relax with each breath out. Get out of your Head, and in to your Body. Allow space to occur between each thought. Notice your thoughts as just ‘thoughts.’ Focus on your Heart, and imagine it opening to a feeling love and compassion for yourself and every living being. Observe your inner and outer world from this awareness. Rest in this peace.
2. Imagine being in a beautiful special place. Notice what you see there, notice how you feel, what you may taste, smell, or hear. Notice what may be getting your attention. What do you want to do in this place? Maybe it is something active or something more calming such as just being. Hang out here for 5 – 20 minutes.
3. After you slowly reemerge from your beautiful special place, recall how you perceived your experience there. Did you see things? Hear things? Feel things such as a breeze on your body or a deep knowing? Did you taste or smell anything? Notice what senses were more engaged. This is likely how you also sense your Intuition.
4. As you go through your day, while being silent or interacting with others, notice when these same senses become engaged and what they may be communicating to you. Do they feel like accurate interpretations of what they may be saying to you?
5. Follow your Intuition to the best of your ability. See how the situation plays out given the path you chose to take. Notice if your interpretation was serving your’s and others’ greatest joy. If it did, great! If not, keep listening and feeling and with time and experience it will become clearer and strengthen.
6. Continue to meditate on a regular basis so your mind and heart are clear to receive the messages and accurately interpret them.
7. If you become too serious or doubt your Intuition, you may block it. Have fun with it!

More and more I am seeing mounting evidence that the body and the mind or one. From the research in Patt Lind-Kyle’s book “Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain”, to Candace Pert’s books “Molecules of Emotion” and “Everything You Need to Feel Go(o)d”, to the work from Richard J. Davidson and his team at UW Madison (to name a few), research is demonstrating that we have more power than we thought (pun intended!) to have lasting positive impacts on ourselves.

In fact, it seems that our minds and our bodies are in separable. So much so that Candace Pert uses the term “bodymind” to describe that they are one. Dr. Pert states that this doesn’t just mean that the mind dominates the body as seen in the popular phrase “the power of the mind over the body”, it becomes the body – Body and Mind are One.

Our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and emotions create a cascade of neural, hormonal and energetic changes to our body; either positively or negatively. This means that how we think, feel, and our behavior directly impacts our physical, mental & emotional health, in additon to what we put in our body, and how we physically use it.

This is good news! With this knowledge, we have more options as to how we can take care of ourselves. By incorporating holistic ways to release old hurts and incorporate more joys we will be better able to prevent disease and illness, recover from an illness, and cope with life challenges.

There are many factors that can contribute to one’s happiness. It’s not my intent here try to list all of these, but to highlight some areas that may give you some ways to heighten your ‘happiness.’

In this post I am drawing from information that was presented by Richard Fine, Ph. D. during a webinar I attended called The Science of Happiness. It was a wonderful presentation filled with current (2008) scientifically researched information on how and why people feel happy.

An interesting point he made is that happiness is more of a fleeting feeling and that joy or peace more accurately reflect what people mean when they describe themselves as happy. Therefore, the goal would be to feel more overall peace and joy.

So how can you be more happy, uh, I mean more joyful and peaceful? Here are a few factors to consider:

External ‘things’ can make us happy to a point, and sometimes this can be fleeting. Being more peaceful and joyful is a process. It is a balance of external and internal factors. It comes from personal growth, facing difficulties and obstacles, having patience and persistance, having humor, loyalty, friendship, physical exercise, finding meaning and purpose, and leading a life of integrity.

It’s important to have acceptance of life’s experiences, a respect for a wide range of emotions, while working on self-improvement through acceptance. Also, it is important to have acceptance and recognition of divine order, a respect for the sacredness of life, seeing the beauty in creation, while realizing you’re part of something greater.

It comes from finding meaning and contributing to others, and finding value in serving others. Being able to give and receive. In fact, having compassion, sharing, giving to others not only make us, and the receiver feel good, it can lower our stress levels, which means we will be more healthy. How wonderful!

Our emotions and judgements can play a significant factor in how good or not we feel. Psychoneuroimmunology (there’s that word, again!) is a big word that says that our mental and emotional state influences the neural and hormonal systems in the body. If we’re unhappy or stressed, it can have a negative impact on our physical bodies. Therefore, it can be helpful to lower the stress by including the above tips in your life, or inducing the relaxation response through spending time enjoying nature, spending time with a loved one, exercising, meditation, biofeedback, or guided imagery. This will improve your sense of well-being, make you more healthy overall, and quite likely even prevent disease.

When we feel more relaxed and peaceful, we generally feel more positive. Life looks brighter. We enjoy ourselves, others, and life’s experiences more.

So, if we put it all together, Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of how our thoughts, feelings, emotions and behavior affect our nervous and immune systems and vice versa. Pretty cool.

This is the mind-body connection. Candace Pert, Ph. D. in pharmacology, refers to it in her book “Molecules of Emotion” as the ’bodymind.’ She states in her section titled “Mind in Body”:

               “The concept of a network, stressing the interconnectedness of all systems of the organism, has a variety of paradigm-breaking implications. In the popular lexicon, these kinds of connections between body and brain have long been referred to as “the power of the mind over the body.” But in light of my research, that phrase does not describe accurately what is happening. Mind doesn’t dominate body, it becomes body- body and mind are one. I see the process of communication we have demonstrated, the flow of information throughout the whole organism, as evidence that the body is the actual outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind. Bodymind, a term first proposed by Dianne Connelly, reflects the understanding, derived from Chinese medicine, that the body is inseparable from the mind. And when we explore the role that emotions play in the body, as expressed through the neuropeptide molecules, it will become clear how emotions can be seen as a key to the understanding of disease.

We know that the immune system, like the central nervous system, has a memory and the capacity to learn. Thus, it could be said that intelligence is located not only in the brain but in cells that are distributed throughout the body, and that the traditional separation of mental processes, including emotions, from the body is no longer valid. ”

Therefore, it seems that our bodymind can effect our health, either positively or negatively. This knowledge gives us power. Power to learn ways to positively affect our bodymind, be healthier, and lead more joyful and fulfilling lives.

Thank you, Dr. Pert, for your scientific validation of the mind-body connection!

I have to say that I feel these folks are the real deal of showing you how to manifest your dreams.

You can sign up on The Intenders Bridge and receive daily steps for the Intention process for 44 days like I did. I will be working on these steps over the next few months.

Here we are, at the beginning of a new year. A time when many of us make resolutions or intentions of what we would like to manifest in our lives. I believe it is true that, for the most part, we can achieve whatever we put our minds to. However, some people have great difficulty manifesting their goals, while others seem to reach them with little effort. I’m sure there are many reasons why, but one reason may be that what we want to achieve is a way to avoid our past hurts, and by not dealing with them directly, they continue to manifest despite our best efforts. I think John Ruskan says it best in his ‘Emotional Clearing’ book:

“When we try to bring something into our lives, we usually start with a concept of what we think we need – a concept of the mind. The mind, however, is the source of our self-rejection. Consequently, the mind cannot be relied on to provide solutions. What the mind generally comes up with are better ways to avoid experience, continue self-rejection, and maintain addictions. Any solution of the mind will be dualistic. Even if the solution is achieved, it will not provide the happiness that is expected. There may be apparent relief at first, but the new condition will change into or be accompanied by its complement. For example, if you try to affirm prosperity, you will also maintain your sense of survival anxiety. Prosperity that comes to you will be balanced by your increasing insecurity. The two are dualistically dependent and cannot exist without each other… In contrast, when a situation is processed (using Emotional Clearing), the intelligence of the Higher self works for us, providing a solution that the mind could never imagine. The solution will be genuinely creative and lead to circumstances that result in the dropping of addictions.”

Here’s to wishing you are able to accept all the parts of yourself, so you may manifest what dream!

We are in the midst of the Holiday Season. A time that can be a filled with feelings of pressure and stress mixed with joy and connection with others.

Laughter can make us feel good. It is fun to play. Laughter can melt away stress and worry. It helps us detach from negative emotions and feelings. Biochemical changes occur within and around our bodies, and then we feel relaxed and uplifted.  

Laughter help us to feel good, AND it has can help us recover from an illness or maintain health.

Norman Cousins, who wrote ‘Anatomy of an Illness’ and suffered with a debilitating form of arthritis, found that 10 minutes of laughter lowered the levels of inflammation in his body, and alleviated his pain so he could then have two hours of replenishing sleep. To induce his laughter, he would watch old Candid Camera episodes and Marx Brothers films. Along with this regimen and large doses of vitamin C (to help rebuild the collagen tissue in his joints), Cousins was able to recover to a functional level, despite the physicians telling him he had a 1 in 500 chance of doing so. He believed part of his recovery was also due to his positive outlook regarding his illness, and his confidence in his partnership with his physician and within himself.

May you experience laughter and joy that raise you to high peaks for a healthy mind, body & spirit.

There’s even a Yoga practice for laughter. Check out http://www.laughteryoga.org/

Stress, worry and other unpleasant feelings can take a toll on our mental health and physical health. Healthy People 2000, a report from the US Department of Health and Human Services, has estimated that 70-80% of all visits to the doctor are for stress-related or stress-induced illnesses. More and more we are discovering how the mind and body are profoundly connected. Stress and negative emotions send a flood of internal biochemical changes that can negatively affect not only our mood, but our physical health.  

Thus, happiness is a fabulous goal. Joy is a tremendously wonderful state of being. It is our natural state of being, but can become increasingly elusive with the bumps and bangs through life.

However, through our striving toward happiness and peace, we often reject those parts of us still hurting. I once provided healing services for a woman who was very sick from cancer. She modeled the common thinking to be positive, and struggled with allowing herself to grieve. It is important to be positive, and it is equally important to be honest with the hurt parts and how we feel, and honor all emotions within ourselves. By bringing awareness, love and acceptance to these areas, we naturally allow them to transform.

We can let negativity or pain take us over. Therefore, it is important to detach from them and find ways to connect to the positive. Perhaps by focusing on something we love or are grateful for, taking a walk, prayer, meditation or laughter. Once we have space from the negativity, then we can bring our positive, loving and compassionate selves to that previous negative state, accept it, and allow it to transform. Then we will begin to heal.

If in a positive state – then enjoy it! But if something is nagging at you and you are pushing discomforts down, then bring that positive, loving and compassionate part of yourself to the hurt parts and accept them. That is what they need. Through this balance we move toward accepting the wounded parts allowing them to naturally transform. Here we will find deeper, more long-lasting peace & joy.